A Quiet Day
by AleyKitty
Summary: A Oneshot challenge based on "So, I found this waterfall" and "Kurama/OC". This is a story about a quiet day in the life of Youko as a young fox in his 20s before he became a thief, or really explored the world. In this fictitious childhood Kurama lives in a private town with others of his kind, and one of those is his intended, Kane, the OC. Pure Fluff.


Kurama yawned and lay back in the grass letting the sun bake away everything he thought he might do with his day. He was just going to lay there, and be a plant. There was nothing else for it. Today was a day to be a plant. With that in mind, he didn't react when she came up from below the hill, from the village. Instead, he just let his bangs brush back and forth in the wind, and his back sink into the cool dirt, and his face and top bristle in the sun.

To his amazement, she lay down beside him rather than rousting him from his peace. He heard her fall back on the ground, and her energy seep into the roots below them, milling around with his own.

They were supposed to be joined in four seasons. It would be summer again and the day would be peaceful like this one. They'd been chosen as a pair because of their energy doing what it did now, twisting and holding to one another. It was a strange sensation, like belonging, but not quite because they always fought.

She was uptight, and knowledge hungry. He enjoyed a good brawl and a drink with friends. He liked the feeling of being drunk, the fluidity of motion when he couldn't control his complex muscle control, and the haze that made things a challenge to think out. Kane wasn't one for drinks. He asked her out to get one once, and she told him it was a waste of effort and would only damage his developing synaptic nerves and deprive his brain of precious materials.

They butted heads like that, but their energy didn't. It was supposed to be a sign that you were meant for someone, that you would get along with them, and love them, but Kurama thought the Messengers were a bunch of old fools who didn't know what they were talking about. He couldn't see how he could mate with Kane in four seasons and be happy like that. She was a nightmare.

And yet, she lounged beside him, silent, not gabbing about all the things she was learning with her mentor, or trying to talk him out of being a plant for the day. Instead, she was just lying there, her breath even, her ears and tail relaxed, not a sound. Kurama wanted to roll over and sit on her, maybe cut out her heart and eat it, see what the Messengers thought of that, but he conceded to the will of being a plant. He wouldn't be a predator today, plants weren't predators (most of the time).

Why wasn't she talking? Why wasn't she being herself? Kurama had come to expect a certain level of engagement with Kane, up in the echelon of what mentors required. She was constantly making him think, debating about why someone would wear a certain color, or what was the meaning of the way someone walked, and in the end, he fought tooth and nail whatever she said just because he could usually win. It didn't matter if he thought he might be right or wrong, and she knew it.

Sometimes she'd let him win, come back a few days later and make him fight for her original point, then tell him that she won when she let him win. Other times, she would just let him win then tell him he didn't believe it himself, and they'd move on.

They hadn't had a good fight in a couple months, he realized. The last one had been about the roads, and how the placement of certain shops showed political favors in play. The tailors was precariously close to the well, when tailors didn't use water, and the butcher could have benefited more from that location because of all the blood. Kurama argued that the tailor paid off Yikura, and Kane disagreed, saying it was Hanamori. After a few days thought, Kurama and Kane both decided it was Girshiri, but neither would admit it. Kurama only knew she agreed with him because they both were staring at him when he passed them on the street, and then their ears perked up together at the thought. He'd nearly felt her realization through their energy it was so close.

But why was she here today? Why was she a plant too?

He pulled his eyes opened to check the sun. It was midday, she should be going to learn about diseases and doctoring from the herbologist. He let himself sink back into the plants again.

Their energy had finished mixing, and it lay like indigo between his purple, and her blue. If he focused, he could feel her energy morphing into his own, and back again, he could practically hear her thoughts. Guessing, he knew she wasn't thinking about him at all, or their energy. She was somewhere else, daydreaming.

He flushed as he realized he was a part of that dream. Why? Why was she laying with him like this? They were practically blood rivals, always had been.

Growing up Kane would try to compete with him during mentorship together, the large groups like learning basic control of their energy, and meditation. Why was she so relaxed now? Why didn't he feel that energetic competition from her? He felt like he could just lay beside her, trust her, and go back to sleep, go back to being just a plant and letting his mind dissolve.

But what did she want?

Why wouldn't she talk?

Kane's silence was starting to bother him. He thought that maybe she was sick, but he couldn't feel an illness in her. Maybe she was exhausted, but she didn't feel tired. It was so abnormal, he realized she had brought him out of being a plant and made him a fox again. He rolled over and wrapped an arm over her stomach, resting his head on her chest, staring her in the eye, and waited. The staring was enough to ask his question.

"So, I uh, I found this waterfall," she flushed and her ears flicked back.

A waterfall? What did a waterfall have to do with anything? Did she want to debate about the rhetoric of a waterfall? How? It wasn't manmade, it wasn't constructed.

"It fell down to this gorge surrounded by a gravel beach. I guess it was probably created by a lake from runoff after an iceberg or a glacier passed by." She rested her hands on his arms, lay her head back, and shut her eyes, completely submitting to the idea of his closeness.

"It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. There's only one thing I know that's prettier." Kurama waited. She obviously wanted to talk. She wasn't asking him anything. Usually she'd ask him to talk by actually forming a question for him to supply a response.

What if she wanted to go jumping off the waterfall? Maybe she'd invite him out to it, then push him over the edge, check if it was safe. But she wasn't malicious like that. He could feel that she wasn't intending him harm. She was content to just keep laying there.

She opened her eyes again and stared him down, but it wasn't aggressive. It was gentle, like a love nip. She blinked slowly and smiled. "I just wanted to come see if you really were prettier."

She was flirting. Kurama smiled, he couldn't help it. He'd never heard a sappier thing in his life. Granted, that had only been a decade or two, but he was still amused. His tail swished up and curled. "You're bad at this."

"Bad at what?" Kane asked, brushing her hand through his bangs.

"Bad at flirting." He clarified for her.

"Oh." She nodded a little and appraised him curiously. "I wasn't trying to flirt. I really did just find a waterfall, and I really am here just to see how pretty you are compared to it."

"Uh huh," he teased. "Sure you are."

She laughed, "I'll show it to you one day when you've matured and stopped being such a foolish, distrustful prick."

"Alright then." He smiled and sealed her declaration with a soft kiss to the lips, their first kiss.


End file.
